


Cultured Man

by ClaraxBarton



Series: AU Alphabet [6]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Multi, Red Room is a bar, alternate universe-fake dating, established Nat/Sam, established Nat/Sam/Clint, firefighter clint, self esteem? Clint's never heard of her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23519545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: Clint knows the score - and the score is a lot of empty shot glasses and a lot of very, very bad dates.But at least the sex is good.Now beta read by the amazing Ro!!!
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson
Series: AU Alphabet [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685266
Comments: 29
Kudos: 185





	Cultured Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shatteredhourglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredhourglass/gifts).



“So,” Sam asked as he slid the shot of tequila across the bar and towards Clint’s waiting hand, “what are we celebrating tonight?”

Clint snorted a laugh and tossed back the shot and then slid the empty, upturned shot glass to join its equally spent brethren - five in total, now. He signalled for another.

Sam squinted his eyes, lips pursed as he looked Clint over.

“You got dumped again, didn’t you?” Sam assumed. He gave Clint another shot of tequila, but while Clint was downing it and scowling through the aftertaste, Sam set a glass of water down.

“I didn’t get dumped the last time,” Clint growled. He glared at the water, but… what the hell. He took a few deep gulps, and wow. That actually kind of hit the spot.

“Dude, she emailed you to tell you to pick up your shit. That’s called getting dumped.”

“No, no. She was  _ moving, _ and she-”

“She dumped you.”

“Maybe I dumped her. Maybe she asked me to move to Oklahoma with her, and I turned her down.”

Sam gave him a look, and Clint sighed. His shoulders slumped, and he hung his head.

“Yeah, fine, she dumped me.”

“You get that there’s more to relationships than having a big dick and knowing how to use it, right?” Sam refilled the water instead of giving Clint another shot.

“I do more than just use my dick,” Clint said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I remember some explicit comments about my skill with my mouth and my fingers and-”

Sam rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re good in the sack. The weekend you spent with me and Natasha was awesome, and you’re welcome back for a repeat any time. But there’s more to a relationship than sex, dude.”

Clint scowled.

“Yeah. I know. But I’m not good at all the other parts.”

“Hence your celebratory shots, huh?” Sam gestured.

“No, actually. It’s my birthday.”

Sam blinked in surprise.

“Dude, you’ve been coming here for three years - I’ve spent literal hours in your ass and you’ve had my dick in your mouth and your tongue in my wife’s ass, and this is the first I’m hearing about your birthday?”

“Like I just said. I’m only good at the sex stuff.”

Sam snorted and shook his head.

“Fuck, man. You are-”

“Pathetic, I know.”

“I was going to say in need of a birthday cake, but we can go with your thing too.”

They glared at each other.

“Man, seriously. You know you’ve got more to offer than the sex stuff, right?” Sam leaned his forearms on the bar top, and he had to know how stupidly hot that made him look.

Clint reluctantly, and a little uncoordinatedly, pulled his gaze back to Sam’s face.

“Do I? Because the last seven people I’ve dated…” Clint sighed and held up one of the empty shot glasses and gave Sam a pout.

Sam rolled his eyes but obliged - pouring another shot in a clean glass and passing it over.

“The last seven people you’ve dated were idiots who you met on hookup apps. You really think that’s gonna get you a lasting relationship?”

Clint shrugged and tossed back the shot.

“WIth my luck?”

Sam laughed.

“Man, with  _ your _ luck, you’d meet an assassin on Grindr and end up in a Russian prison.”

Clint shrugged again. That was probably fair.

Sam shook his head, reached out to grip Clint’s shoulder in either solidarity or reproach - probably both - and then moved off to help another customer.

It gave Clint time to wallow, drink more water, and look around the bar.

Tuesday night wasn’t usually busy for  _ Red Room _ , the bar that Natasha Romanov and Sam Wilson owned and operated, and this Tuesday was no exception.

Aside from Clint, there was a cluster of dudes in suits, some other dudes in jeans and flannels watching hockey, some tipsy kids who looked barely old enough to be in the bar, and… and a very hot, very build white dude with blond hair and a shirt that was approximately three sizes too small for his biceps and chest. 

He was at the opposite end of the bar from Clint, nursing a bottled beer and chatting with a white woman with blonde hair and red lips and a loud, bright smile.

They were both very attractive, and the woman kept touching the man’s impressive arms where they strained against the fabric of his too-small shirt.

The man…

Huh.

On first glance, Clint had thought he was into the woman, maybe even at the bar  _ with _ her. But the longer Clint watched them, the more obvious it became that not only were they not a coupole, but the man was trying to disengage. And failing.

Clint picked up his water, got to his feet, and made his way towards them.

He was steadier on his feet than he had feared, so that was good.

“...appreciate it. But I’m not really interested, ma’am.”

The man’s voice was rich and deep and- and had he really just said  _ ma’am _ ?

Clint had to swallow a laugh and then turn it into a cough when he saw that the hot, blond-haired man was blushing. Oh hell. He was adorable.

Deciding what the hell, Clint put his water down on the bar close to the man’s beer and stepped closer.

“Hey, babe,” he said and grinned at the man. “Sorry I’m late.”

The man stared at Clint in bewilderment, eyebrows drawing together over bright eyes and lips turning down into his full, trimmed beard.

Clint widened his own eyes, stared at him, and tried to telepathically communicate.

_ Lifeboat, dude. Lifeboat _ .

The man’s face relaxed, and he smiled, warm and wide, and slid one impressive arm out and around Clint’s waist. He hauled him close.

“No worries. I was just talking to Jane, here, while I waited.”

Clint transferred his smile to the woman.

“Thanks for keeping him entertained,” he said and winked. “Not to be rude, but it’s my birthday, and this guy has promised me a very, very good night.”

Jane flushed, stammered something, and moved away.

The man let out a relieved breath.

“Thank you,” he said and released Clint.

“No problem. You looked like you needed the save.”

The man’s mouth tightened again, but then he shrugged and shook his head. He gestured to the bar stool beside him.

“Let me get you a drink?”

Clint sat down - he was dumb but not dumb enough to turn down a drink from a hot guy.

“I’m not really good at the whole… picking up strangers thing. Or, you know, turning them down.”

“There are worse things to suck at,” Clint assured him, thinking back to the conversation he had  _ just had _ with Sam.

“Fair. I’m Steve, by the way.”

“Clint. Nice to meet you.”

Steve grinned.

“So, is it really your birthday?”

“Would I lie?”

Steve laughed - and it was a damn nice sound.

Clint decided to spend the rest of the night - or, at least, however long Steve would put up with him - making him laugh again.

-o-

“Your shirt… is charred.” Natasha’s nose was scrunched up, as if she could smell the burnt material of Clint’s t-shirt.

He sighed.

“It’s a long story.”

She arched an eyebrow but slid a shot of tequila across the bar to him.

“Did it involve a kitten in a tree?” she asked.

Clint signalled for another shot before even drinking the first. And Natasha, because she wasn’t a judging judger like Sam - okay, she was more of a judging judger than Sam, but she judged everyone for  _ everything,  _ so it was different - gave him another shot without hesitation.

“You get that the whole fireman rescuing kittens from trees thing isn’t, like, actually a thing we do that often.”

“Full-grown cat?” she guessed.

“Ferret,” he conceded. 

“Still doesn’t explain the shirt. Was the ferret on fire?”

“There were fireworks.”

Natasha laughed and, well, Clint’s body still ached because he had had to battle with the damn ferret, and he had actually  _ fallen _ out of the tree - a controlled jump, he maintained, but Kate assured him was really falling on his ass while on fire and clutching a ferret, but aching or not, it was great to see Natasha happy. Even if it was because he was a dumbass.

“You realize that Sam is never going to let you live this down.”

“Yeah, but I’m not gonna tell Sam,” Clint argued.

Natasha lifted both eyebrows.

Clint groaned.

“Ugh. What? What do I have to bribe you with to keep you from telling your husband all about my heroic deeds?”

Natasha’s lips twitched, but she got her face under control and gave him another shot.

“Go on a date with Gwen.”

Clint sighed.

This was, apparently, now a thing.

Had been, ever since Clint’s birthday four months ago and Sam deciding that Clint needed to stop focusing on just getting laid and try to actually  _ date _ people. 

It hadn’t gone well.

It hadn’t gone well even before Natasha had decided that Clint needed to stop using dating apps - she’d also deleted his hookup apps, and Clint was afraid of her enough not to risk reloading them - and instead go out on dates with people she vetted previously.

Disasters.

Every. Single. One.

“I’m not going to go on a date with your crazy-smart, crazy-amazing friend Gwen.”

“I didn’t say she was smart.”

“All of your friends are smart, Nat. And awesome. And way too good for a dumbass firefighter who eats pizza three times a day.”

“But at least one of those times, it’s breakfast pizza,” Natasha argued, because Clint had introduced her to it on one of his weekend sex marathons with her and Sam, and she had been in love - with the food - ever since.

“If Sam were here, he’d cry hearing you say that.”

Natasha’s smirk was smug. As usual.

“You save ferrets from trees and fireworks. You’re a good guy. You’re great in bed. Gwen would be lucky to have you.”

Clint gave her a long, steady look.

“Nat, the last three dates you had me go on were… awful.”

“In my defense, Brock wasn’t out as a neo-Nazi. I only knew him from poker nights.”

Clint had found out the frankly awful way - half-naked, on his knees and with Brock’s dick angled towards his mouth - that the man had a swastika tattooed on his inner left thigh. 

“It’s not just that,” Clint sighed. “Even… even the good ones are… too good for me. I’m not- Actually, to be honest, it’s just-”

He didn’t know how to get her to back off.

He’d tried everything. Ish.

But Natasha just refused to listen to him. Believing - and not entirely wrongly - that she knew better than he did what Clint actually needed.

And fine, fair. But what Clint  _ really _ didn’t need was another date that ended in failure. He was so damn tired of not measuring up, of having to crawl back to the bar and admit defeat again and see the sympathy and pity in Sam and Natasha’s eyes.

Clint wracked his brain, more than a little desperate, when he spotted a hot, well-built white guy with shoulder-length dark hair walking into the bar, phone out and his focus on it. There was a slight frown on his face and-

And Clint had had five shots now. So fuck it.

“I’m actually already kinda seeing someone,” he blurted out, like the absolute dumbass that he was.

Natasha tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.

“Oh? Are you really?”

“Yeah. That’s - I’m here on a date right now.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the guy that had just walked in.

“You’re dating Bucky?” Natasha’s look of disbelief was unflattering.

_ Bucky? _ What grown man went by  _ Bucky _ ?

“Yep,” Clint decided to commit. Even though Natasha clearly actually knew the guy and-

The guy - Bucky - looked over and, for a moment, his eyes caught Clint’s.

Clint grinned at him and held up his hand in a little, awkward as all fuck, half-wave.

Bucky arched one dark brow, and his full, pink lips quirked into a smile.

“Be right back,” Clint said over his shoulder to Natasha as he stood up and walked over to Bucky.

“So, uh, can you do me a solid and pretend you’re my boyfriend?” Clint asked him once he was close enough to be heard but not overheard by Natasha.

“What?” Bucky was even more attractive up close. Unfairly so.

“Just, uh, Nat’s been giving me a hard time for months and-”

“Oh, are you Clint?”

Clint opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then decided to keep it closed.

Instead, he just nodded miserably.

Bucky chuckled.

“Well, doll, I think I can pretend to be your boyfriend for a night and get Natalia off your back. Are we the kind of boyfriends who kiss in public?”

“Uh, I-”

Clint’s brain decided to stop working. Because it was helpful like that.

But, in his and his brain’s defense, Bucky had just called him  _ doll _ , like Bucky was some movie star from the 1940s and Clint was… whatever, whoever got called doll by the hero of movies back then.

So he just nodded, because… in for five shots of tequila, in for a whole bottle?

Bucky tugged Clint close - grabbed the neck of his charred shirt and actually tugged until their chests bumped together - and pressed a brief, chaste kiss to Clint’s lips.

“Thanks. Thanks,” Clint said and repeated the word. Like a dumbass.

“No problem. Buy me a drink, and let’s act disgustingly smitten so that Natasha has to go home and gargle with vodka.”

“I think she does that every night anyway,” Clint pointed out.

Bucky laughed, slung one arm around Clint’s shoulders, and steered them towards a booth.

Clint decided to spend the rest of the night trying to make him laugh again.

-o-

“Listen, I love you, I do.”

Clint raised an eyebrow at Sam, who raised an eyebrow right back.

“Shut the fuck up,” Sam said, even though Clint had very wisely been keeping his mouth shut - except to swallow the shots of tequila that Natasha snuck to him whenever she walked down to their end of the bar. “I love you. And you know that Natasha and I like having you around.”

Clint couldn’t help but wince.

What in the fuck?

Was he about to get dumped by his sex buddies? The only semi-successful relationship he’d ever had? And granted, being the go-to booty call of a hot married couple wasn’t, like, an A+ in the romantic relationship department, but when everything else Clint had was a C- at best…

Plus, the sex was really good.

“I’m sorry,” Clint said. Apologies worked, sometimes. Well, once. Once, he’d apologized to a girlfriend, and their relationship had dragged on for another week before she cheated on him again and…

“What the hell are you sorry for?” Sam demanded, arms crossed over his chest.

“Uh… whatever I did to make you and Nat want to dump me.”

Sam stared at him for a long, tense moment.

And then he sighed and lifted a hand to rub his brow.

“Man, you need therapy. Like, a lot of therapy.”

“Why do you think I come here three times a week?”

“I don’t have my master’s degree yet, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be your therapist. Not for all the weekend sex marathons in the world.”

Ouch.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I mean because I’m too invested in you, Clint. I love you. Like I  _ just _ said.”

“So why…?” Clint didn’t want to say it again. 

“We’re not dumping you.” Sam looked away from Clint and towards Natasha, where she was serving - and flirting with - a group of women in tight dresses. He gestured, and Natasha wrapped it up and sauntered their way.

Natasha gave Clint another shot while Sam scowled.

“He thinks we’re dumping him.”

“I told you he would.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Look. I get it,” Clint interrupted. “It was fun while it lasted, really. I won’t be a baby about it. If you… want me to start going to another bar, I will.”

They turned almost identical looks of shocked horror towards Clint.

“We’re not dumping you!” Sam repeated.

“Don’t you dare,” Natasha whisper-threatened.

“Uh… what’s going on, then?” Clint asked, edging away from the bar - and Natasha - a little bit. Not that it would do him that much good, probably.

“Last weekend, when you came over, you were texting with that guy,” Natasha said, voice neutral.

“Scott?”

Sam nodded.

“Yeah. He asked you to go out with him,” Sam did a handwave thing, “but you turned him down.”

“Well, we were kinda… in the middle of our weekend?” Clint explained. Because they hadn’t been in the middle of sex when Scott had texted to ask Clint out for dinner, but dinner with Scott on Saturday night would have meant not getting to cook naked for Sam and Natasha and then getting to spend another night tangled up with them.

And, really, Scott seemed like a cool guy - almost as much of a disaster as Clint - but… why turn down an awesome, sure thing to risk becoming yet another shitty date story for another awesome person who wouldn’t ever call Clint back for date number three?

“Clint, you have an open invitation to join us,” Natasha said. “Whenever.”

“Uh… thank you?”

“But you can’t just… put your own life on hold for us,” Sam said.

“It’s not really on hold, though, is it?” Clint argued. “It’s, you know, a dumpster fire on full-blast.”

That earned him twin glares.

Before either could say something, though, Clint became aware of someone near his back.

He turned his head to see who it might be - probably someone wanting to order a drink, since he was monopolizing both bartenders - and stared.

It was Bucky.

And Steve.

They were together, and they were smirking at him.

“So, I heard you were dating my boyfriend,” Steve said.

“Uh…”

Bucky laughed and elbowed Steve.

“Lay off, Stevie. I did him a favor - the same favor he did for  _ you _ .”

Steve rolled his eyes but gave Bucky a kind of soft, dopey grin that made it very clear that he was very, very in love with the other guy.

“I’m sorry,” Clint said.

“Fuck off,” Bucky replied. “You got nothing to be sorry for.”

Clint licked his lips and… wondered what the fuck was going to happen now.

Steve jerked his head towards one of the few open booths in the bar.

“Join us for a drink.”

“I… don’t want to get in the way.” Clint already had enough third-wheel feelings to work through with Natasha and Sam. He didn’t want to spend even a night at the bar with these two guys, admiring them and envying them and knowing he could never have them.

“Actually,” Bucky drawled and stepped close, slotting himself against Clint’s side, “we were hoping you  _ would _ get in the way.”

Awesome.

Another insanely hot couple who wanted to invite Clint around to be spit-roasted.

“And by ‘in the way’,” Steve stepped up, “Bucky means we want to take you out on a date. A lot of dates, hopefully.”

Clint stared at them.

“What?”

Bucky smirked.

“We’re asking you out on a date, doll. You in?”

And Clint was a dumbass, but he wasn’t  _ that _ much of a dumbass.

“Hell, yes.”

-o-

  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Cultured Man](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149122) by [CruciatusForeplay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CruciatusForeplay/pseuds/CruciatusForeplay)




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